September 15th,2007 Service Project

Before: I am really excited about my community service project becuase this year my goal was to reach out to the Dubuque Community by competing some service. I am a little nervous because sometimes elderly poeple intimidate me. They do this becuase at times they appear to be really crabby, when you are trying to help them. When I did my service today I was extremely tired, but I was still going to try to be as cheerful as possible.

During: Today when I went to volunteer, Sister Mary Clamensa, gave me a tour of Mount Carmel. She explained that I would be transporting the nuns in wheelchairs from thier floor to the Loyala activity center. She informed me if I had any questions I could ask one of the aids. At first, I followed one of the aids around, as she showed me how to get all of the nuns. We would go foor by foor and knock on doors. Some nuns would say that they did not feel like coming and others, seemed very excited to go listen to the speaker. One sisters was very sweet, she said she did not want to listen to the speaker because she had elevatoritis. She didn't have it yesterday, but she had it today becuase she didn't like how some nuns would push buttons when they weren't suppose to, and some could only stand in a certain place.
The activity for today was a speaker, named Mert. She was someone that all of the sisters looked up to because they have known her for many year. Mert helps the nuns with their health problems, and whatever Mert says the nuns need to do, they follow those directions. Merts speech today was a slide show about her trip to South America. I really enjoyed the speech because I was able to learn about a country that I have never seen before. The pictures of the Alps Mountains, and Eguaso Falls were beautiful. It made me really appreciate the creation that God made, and we were put her to take care of it.
Today I met Sister Ethal. As I was talking to her I found out that she used to be teacher at Clarke College for 11 years. Ethal said she really enjoyed teaching psychology at Clarke. But she left to move to California to help her parents. This just reminded me of how you can be content with your life, but then you will be pulled in a different direction unexpectantly. I really hope to talk with Ethal again and learn more about her teaching experience at Clarke.
After: The most positive part of today was seeing how excited all of the nun were to meet me, and some even wanted to know if I was coming back. The hardest part of today was getting familiar with everything.